A Constructional Approach To The Pattern Of "So What"

The paper presents a study on the constructional approach to the pattern of "so what".The paper attempts to testify whether the "so what" construction really exists. It tries toidentify the probable preconditions, in other words, the preexisting linguistic contexts forgenerating the uniquely emotional comment of "so what". In the perspective of the theoryof construction grammar, it accounts for the pairing of form and meaning of the particularconstruction. In the meantime, the present paper explores the probable underlyingpsychological and socio-cultural motivations hidden in the "so what" pattern.Construction grammar is construction-based cognitive approach which claims thatconstruction is form-meaning or form-function pairing (Goldberg1995; Lakoff1997；Kayand Fillmore1999). Since its birth in1990s, a lot of studies and researches have beencarried out on its general overview, its explanation of some marginal phrases such as "letalone" in English and "aì zǎ zǎ dì" in Chinese. The new theory conforms to theprinciples of cognitive linguistics with regard to the relationship between syntax andsemantics. It is comparatively objective and scientific as a result of the fact that itsanalysis is based on empirical data. In addition, the theory is in accordance with childlanguage acquisition. Besides, language universals have been successfully explained underthe guidance of the theory. Such advantages have been attracting more and more scholarsand researchers both at home and abroad.The paper aims to conduct a constructional approach to the analysis of the pattern of"so what". Based on the theory of construction grammar, the research begins withcollecting the data of the pattern of "so what" from newspapers, novels, magazines,creative writings, internet or other resources of natural language from the targetcommunity and then the paper classifies the data according to the needs of the thesis andmake linguistic analysis and inductive reasoning, trying to explicate the pairing of theform and meaning of the pattern of "so what" and the multiple motivations hidden in thepattern.The paper has proved that "so what" construction does really exist for the unpredictability of its form and meanings. And there are several probable preexistinglinguistic contexts for generating the uniquely emotional comments "so what", forinstance, when the hearer says something that may hurt the speaker's interest or feelings;something that the speaker regards as insignificant; something that the speaker could notreach an agreement with the hearer and so on. The pairing of form and meaning of theparticular construction can be accounted for in several different situations of context. Thepossible underlying psychological and social-cultural motivations hidden in the "so what"construction have been identified and construction grammar could be used to account forthis language phenomena. The findings of the study will improve the efficiency of theteaching of English idiomatic expressions and make language learning more effectively.It is hoped that the findings of the research will make contribution to a betterunderstanding and comprehension of the pattern of "so what". Meanwhile, the presentpaper is supposed to be able to provide a new perspective and lend support to thetheoretical research in the area of construction grammar. It is expected that the researchwill facilitate the acquisition of idioms and other vocabulary, and it is helpful to providesome suggestions for the second language teaching and learning as well.